Structural and executional drivers of downstream revenue

Revenue flows that occur at other related organizational units and over time are an important part of customer profitability analysis and resource planning. This study analyzes downstream revenue generated from establishing a series of additional organizational units. The setting is a central hospital which established a group of specialty outreach clinics. Using a specially-collected time-series database I show two distinct patterns, depending on the clinic's specialty. One type triggers immediate incremental downstream revenue to the clinic's sponsoring department. The other type of clinic generates revenue that is smaller in value, later in time and mostly in departments not associated with the sponsoring department's medical specialty. Structural and executional clinic characteristics such as distance and clinic frequency differentially affect the amount of revenue generated, implying a need for tailoring performance measures to “clinic type”. Overall, my results suggest caution in developing performance measures that include financial impact in other organizational units – context matters even in a relatively homogenous setting of specialty clinics in one hospital system.     

Block recursion and structural vector autoregressions

In applications of structural VAR modeling, finite-sample properties may be difficult to obtain when certain identifying restrictions are imposed on lagged relationships. As a result, even though imposing some lagged restrictions makes economic sense, lagged relationships are often left unrestricted to make statistical inference more convenient. This paper develops block Monte Carlo methods to obtain both maximum likelihood estimates and exact Bayesian inference when certain types of restrictions are imposed on the lag structure. These methods are applied to two examples to illustrate the importance of imposing restrictions on lagged relationships.     

Resolving Unfair Distribution of Income through Transforming the Mode of Economic Development

传统经济发展方式对收入分配领域中的许多不合理因素产生了强支撑，是我国收入分配差距日益扩大的深层原因。本文通过对“三个转变”的梳理，分析了传统经济发展方式的内在缺陷及其在居民劳动报酬、行业垄断、社会福利体系建设和通货膨胀等方面的负面影响。最后，就如何从转变经济发展方式入手缓解收入分配不公提出了针对性的意见和建议。     

中国年度经济分析：警惕结构性失衡

在投资需求的强劲拉动下，2006年中国经济处在增长周期的高位段，结构性失衡是经济发展的主要问题。根据国内外经济环境，考虑到虽然支持经济增长的因素仍然存在，但世界经济增长的乏力，外需拉动贡献的减弱、结构性失衡的长期影响等，初步预计2007年中国经济增长速度将保持在9．5％。     

Labour adjustment costs: Estimation of a dynamic discrete choice model using panel data for Greek manufacturing firms

In this paper we estimate a dynamic structural model of employment at firm level. Our dataset consists of a balanced panel of 2790 Greek manufacturing firms. The empirical evidence of this dataset stresses three important stylized facts: (a) there are periods in which firms decide not to change their labour input, (b) there are periods of large employment changes (lumpy nature of labour adjustment) and (c) the commonality is employment spikes to be followed by smooth and low employment growth periods. Following Cooper and Haltiwanger [Cooper, R.W. and Haltiwanger, J. “On the Nature of Capital Adjustment Costs”, Review of Economic Studies, 2006; 73(3); 611–633], we consider a dynamic discrete choice model of a general specification of adjustment costs including convex, non-convex and “disruption of production” components. We use a method of simulated moments procedure to estimate the structural parameters. Our results indicate considerable fixed costs in the Greek employment adjustment.     

The impact of the Internet on human activity–travel patterns: analysis of gender differences using multi-group structural equation models

The widespread use of the Internet for conducting various types of activities may be leading to considerable change in people’s activity–travel patterns. Past studies, however, have left many issues unaddressed. Using an Internet-activity diary dataset and multi-group structural equation modeling, this study examines the complex interactions between different types of Internet and physical activities, with a special focus on gender differences and Internet maintenance and leisure activities. The results indicate that the impacts of Internet activities on people’s activity–travel patterns are significantly different across gender. In general, Internet use for maintenance purposes has a greater impact on women’s activity–travel in the physical world, while Internet use for leisure purposes affects men’s physical activities and travel to a greater extent. Further, breaking Internet activities down into different categories reveals some hidden patterns that would not have been detected if these different types of Internet activities were lumped together as a single category.     

The Competitiveness of Mobile Telephony across the European Union

This paper analyses the competitiveness of the mobile telecommunications industry across the European Union. A structural model of demand and supply has been estimated for annual data on 15 EU countries from 1998 to 2002. Estimates of country‐specific conjectural variations allow us to compare the competitiveness of mobile telephony across the EU, and can offer an alternative to the evaluation of competition based on direct cross‐country price comparisons. Average industry conjectural variations decrease over time as a result of regulation. The liberalization of fixed telephone lines and the introduction of number portability for mobiles increase the competitiveness of the mobile industry.     

The Persistence of Profits in the Long Run: A New Approach

We present a trend‐based alternative to the standard first‐order autoregression model in persistence of profits studies. This is motivated by reservations over the interpretation of the standard model, and rests on a different concept of dynamic competition. A nine‐category taxonomy of long‐run persistence stereotypes is developed. Structural time series estimates are presented for a sample of UK companies. We find the null of long run competitive equilibrium not rejected in nearly a third of cases, but non‐eroding persistence to be present in around 60%.     

关于日本经济长期停滞理论与政策的思考

泡沫危机以后,日本试图通过凯恩斯经济政策和结构改革的交替运用来恢复经济增长。20世纪90年代前期,凯恩斯经济政策的运用取得了短期效果。由于供给结构的变化,这一政策并没有使日本经济真正摆脱危机的困境。90年代后期,日本开始改为实施结构改革来提高其潜在增长率。由于总需求的持续减少,日本经济开始由短期衰退转为长期停滞。本文认为,泡沫危机后日本资产价格的持续下跌,导致各经济主体出现大量的不良资产,抵消了以上两大政策的经济效应。其中,商业银行对不良债权处理的拖延造成供给结构效率下降、企业投资和个人消费持续减少,使日本经济的停滞趋于长期化。     

Modeling how institutional investors allocate business to brokers

A model of how institutional investors evaluate and allocate business to brokers shows a complex pattern of influences. The broker's ability to execute transactions at appropriate prices is basic, but this combines with research and sales force performance to build a relationship that affects over-time allocation of business. It is difficult to separate relationship and selling performance, and relationship is subject to considerable decay. Research ability has a weak effect on business allocated on the basis of trading, while trading ability does affect business allocated on the basis of research.